Door to Door Organics. August 18, 2008

Oh my. I just found this fabulous site called Door To Door Organics. It’s a company that delivers organic fruits and vegetables (to your door!) every week or bi-weekly (your choice) and it’s very reasonably priced. Their suppliers are mostly local farmers, but during the winter they get their product from California, Arizona and Mexico. There’s a bunch of different “boxes” you can get, from the “Bitty Box” to the “Large Box” and the produce changes every week, depending on what’s looking good. We have a REALLY hard time finding organic, reasonably-priced produce and even when we do, it’s not always that good. Well, I signed up for the “Medium Box”, to start next week. I’m gonna do the bi-weekly thing and I scheduled it to always come the Wednesday after a payday, so it comes out of my bank account the Friday after payday. Smart, right?!?!

Anyway, you should check it out. It’s an awesome idea and I hope it’s as awesome as I think it will be. The best thing is, no commitments. They e-mail you the Friday before your delivery, and tell you what’s in your box that week and if you don’t want it, or don’t want something specific in it, you can change it or cancel that week all together.

Ether Aura at the Magic Bag August 16, 2008

Last night was our much anticipated show at the Magic Bag. It was pretty great. Everyone that said they’d come (except for two, I think) came, including a few old friends and a surprise appearance by a friend who served as the officiant at our wedding. That was a fantastic surprise. The only thing that’s frustrating about nights like that, is not getting to talk to everybody. I always feel like I’m neglecting people. It kinda sucks. I try to tell myself that they probably understand the situation that I’m in, but a part of me still worries about it.

As far as the set goes, I was nervous as hell and it got the better of me during the second song, “One Hand Away From Out”. I don’t know what happened, other than hitting a totally terrifying note during the first and second chorus, and then being so confused by it that I forgot a bit of the lyrics. It was a pretty bad fuck-up for me and quite unfortunate. Other than that, it was a great show. The stage sound was great and people said the sound coming out of the mains was great too.

One annoying part was that this girl messaged us on MySpace, asking us to do a shout out to her friend during the set because she’s having a rough year, and I agreed to do it. So, as promised, I did the shout out and then they weren’t even there. Needless to say… never doing that again.

It was cool to see Liz Larin since she’s so big in the scene and has won a bazillion DMAs, and Matt Marsh was adorable and put on quite a show. His dad came up to me after and gave me some very sweet compliments and bought all of our CDs. So sweet.

All in all, it was an awesome night and now I’m just looking forward to the Northern Lights show with the Volebeats. We’re playing an acoustic set at the Berkley Front next weekend, opening up for Crashing Cairo, and I’m excited about that as well. It’s nice to strip it down every now and then. We’re doing the acoustic show because of the rule at the Bag that you can’t play a show two weeks before or after you play there. Well, we haven’t advertised the Berkley Front show until now and we’re not playing with the whole band, so I don’t think we’re breaking the rules. I’m trying to get T to do a cover or two, just for shits and giggles, but we’ll see.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the Dream Cruise? August 13, 2008

Seriously. There’s nothing dreamy about it. It hasn’t even officially started and my drive home from work today (I work at Woodward and Lone Pine) was horrific. It was congested, noisy, smelly and between Big Beaver and 13 Mile, there were probably 4 accidents, so clearly… dangerous. I felt totally defeated and wanted to run my car into something.

I mother effing hate the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise.

So, we’ve been watching a lot of the Olympics and I love Michael Phelps. T is over him already, but I’m loving watching him swim and I hope he gets all 8. He just secured number 5, so…

I’m really liking the ladies beach volleyball too. Our girls (Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor) are total dominators.

The gymnastics (a highlight for most people, I’d imagine) have been totally lame and disappointing. I hate how our girls are all manly shaped. The only one I like is Nastia Liukin. She’s still got a feminine frame and clearly has a dance background. I understand that gymnastics is not dance, but why can’t it be both. It’d be so much prettier.

So, I feel like I’m coming down with something, which is just typical of the year I’ve been having. I have one of the biggest shows that we (EA) have had in years coming up on Friday and I have a sore throat. I started sneezing yesterday and definitely don’t feel normal. Sigh… Why couldn’t it be something like nausea or an intestinal parasite or something? Why does it have to be something that effects my ability to sing? Today, I had two doses of Zycam, two helpings of Airborne and a TON of fluids. I’m gonna beat this thing dammit!

Time to steam and get some sleep.

Wow. Smoking is bad… and dumb. August 9, 2008

I went out to see the Auralgasms boys and celebrate Mikeylove’s 40th birthday at Atmosphere (at Proof, downtown across from Comerica Park) on Thursday night. I went with Jeanne, as it was also her birthday the night before and I wanted to get her a birthday drink. I had one dirty martini and a few cigarettes and I am still suffering. Considering that the last time I went, I had two drinks and no cigarettes and felt great the next morning, if not tired, I am confident that it’s the cigarettes that destroyed me. I woke up with a headache yesterday morning and went in to work after taking two Excedrin Migraines and stopping at Crackbucks to get a latte. I ate a donut and a bagel with cream cheese to see if that would help. It didn’t and this was soon followed by one more Excedrin to see if it would kick the headache out. Not so much. I left work at 1:30p to come home and sleep it off. I packed my head in ice and watched Project Runway. There wasn’t much sleeping and I didn’t feel any better by the time I went to bed at 1:30a, more than 24 hours after the offending cigarettes had been smoked. By the time I had actually laid down for my final attempt at sleep, I had consumed 7 Excedrin Migraines total (throughout the day).

I woke up this morning and felt mostly normal, although still not 100%. Two more Excedrin.

I went to see my chiropractor (for the 2nd time this week) for a recurring back problem I’m having and got adjusted and massaged. Back is a little better, but still not 100%. Head is STILL (almost 2 full days later) hurting. Sometimes a lot.

WTF?

I can’t believe I ever smoked cigarettes and I’m never doing that again.

I should mention that I did have a good time that night at Atmosphere, in spite of the fact that the only person that I know of that actively hates me was there. It kind of sucks knowing that someone hates you. I mean, there’s a handful of people that I hate (one of which also happened to be there that night), but I guess it’s different when someone hates you and you don’t hate them back. Wow. that all sounds incredibly silly and yes, I realize hate is a strong word, but it’s surprisingly appropriate in both instances.

Anyway, the music was great as expected. It was nice to see the few people that I did talk to and Jeanne and I got to talk for a while and it was nice.

Just for consistency… August 6, 2008

I’ve spent the evening, one of the few I’ve had to myself in a while, feeling depressed, fat and slightly agitated. I can’t really pin point why, other than the fat part, which is all the more frustrating.

I did get caught up on some e-mail correspondence and decided that if I’m updating everyone else, I should update here.

We’ve had a line up change in Ether Aura. Our rhythm guitarist decided it was time for him to move on. We’ve been playing with an excellent acoustic guitar player, named Dave, that brings a very light, goofy vibe to things. It doesn’t hurt that he’s incredibly talented, as well. The songs sound so much better, and how they’re supposed to sound and I’m just generally feeling a lot better about things than I was a couple of weeks ago. All in all, in spite of it’s unnecessary traumatic-ness, it really was all for the best.

Also, we’re playing at the Magic Bag next Friday, August 15th, and I’m even more excited about it now. First of all, we’re playing with Liz Larin, and I think that’ll be a great crowd for us. Second, a bunch of people that have never seen us before are supposed to come, including two friends from high school, so that’s exciting.

I’ve started a different workout routine, that I’m enjoying. I really hate going to the gym, so I wanted to be able to do something here at home in the mornings. I started taping a bunch of shows on fitTV to see what I liked. At first, I wasn’t thrilled, but then I came across a series called “All Star Workouts” and ultimately Ellen Barrett. She has two All-Star Workouts, one called “Slow-robics” and another called “Pilates Sculpt”. Both are excellent and not overwhelming. I get a great workout and, although I can get through the whole workout, I do have to push myself to do so. The “Slow-robics” totally destroys my ass and hams (they were sore for at least 4 days after the first time I did it) and the “Pilates Sculpt” works with light weights and is a great arm workout. They are both fantastic full body workouts, actually, but that’s just how they effected me. There’s definitely a lot of core work in both, but it’s a bit more prevalent in the “Pilates Sculpt”. Anyway, I just ordered two of her new DVDs. The Series is called “The Studio” and I ordered two of the three, because Amazon only had two. “Fat Burning Fusion” and “Slim Sculpt”. If I love them as much as I think I will, I’ll order the third “Yogini” at some point.

Anyway, so I did Slow-Robics on Monday morning, Pilates Sculpt this morning and then on Friday after work, I’ll try to make it to 5:30 yoga and then hit the EBE for 30 minutes or so. I’m supposed to play racquetball on Saturday, so that’ll be a little extra.

In the mean time, I haven’t lost a lb. in months and it’s really starting to piss me off.

I had more to say when I started this, but I’m super tired now, so I’ll save it for later.

Until then…

Three drinks… August 2, 2008

… is too many drinks.

Now that I’ve got a few minutes… July 30, 2008

I thought I’d update this thing. I’ve been getting a fair amount of traffic on here over the last week or so, so I thought I’d keep up the pace.

Work has picked up a little bit, which I don’t mind, but it’s hard to get back into “bust your ass” mode, when you’ve been in “watch the minutes creep by” mode for months. Either way, it’s a fairly soul crushing job and probably one of the most unrewarding, unfulfilling jobs of all time. Basically, my entire job consists of typing 90 wpm so some rich people can get richer and/or hitting the print button. I have no doubts that a trained monkey could do my job. Okay, well maybe a highly advanced, trained monkey with a computer in its brain, from the future, but still…

I used to feel challenged. August challenged me all the time, but he also took the time to teach me things. That’s the difference. Now, when I’m presented with a new task, it’s kind of just thrown at me with like a “figure it out” kind of attitude and then I have to ask a million questions and I feel like a retard. My days of good raises and decent bonuses are over, I’m sure.

When I came home tonight, T had just gotten home with some carry out from Thang Long and we discovered that Neko had gotten the cat’s food bowl off of the piano bench (where we keep it so she can’t get to it) and eaten all of their food, in addition to her own. She has clearly felt ill all night as a result of it and her belly is hard as a rock. I kinda wish she’d just throw up and get it over with, but not so much. It’s been hours now, so I think she may finally be feeling a bit better, but you can only feel so bad for her when she does something that stupid. I mean, it was dinner for THREE cats. Come on!

Speaking of the children, I just realized I’ve never posted pics of them on here.

Let’s start with the latest mischief maker.

This is Neko, a/k/a Babe Neek. Here is her MySpace page.

This is Kittles, a/k/a Kididdles, a/k/a Giddles. Here is her Catster page.

This is Mushpaws, whose real name is Hamlet, a/k/a Mush. Here is his Catster page.

I don’t have a picture of Baby Fatso on this computer, so I’ll have to wait until T gets home to post that one. It’ll be worth the wait… trust me.

He wasn’t perfect, but he was informed and he cared about us. July 26, 2008

PNAC. July 26, 2008

Two new rules. July 26, 2008

1) Nothing but top shelf gin or vodka for me. Had the premium, Tanqueray, rather than the top shelf last night (difference of $4 in price) and feel like garbage this morning.

2) Always consume some greasy food or bread or something that’ll stick to my ribs. Definitely do not eat a banana and go right to bed. Dumb!